I used to be known as the girl who changes hair color every week (not that I would dye it that often, but hair color has a way of transforming itself as you wash it everyday.) Whatever the hair color would be though, people will always have different opinions.

A couple of days ago, I had a familiar visitor (again) at the boarding house, and it was starting to manifest as fever and UTI attack. The smarter person in me texted my dad to cook some nice food, sinigang na hipon (how do you translate that? Maybe shrimp soup lol). His reply was “ok,” as usual.

Right when I got home, the fever was gone, together with all the bad feelings. The next day, he dyed my hair (because my mom and sisters can’t), offered to teach me how to drive (this time, a car and not a motorbike; oh and I suddenly remember that he also taught me how to ride a bike), and then got into a muddy fight with this huge crab that he had been feeding the past weeks.

From the muddy pond

To this, on my plate

Do you remember my post, “There’s a place for healing?” Yes, I confirm that there is such a place. If we can just treat our psychological challenges as simple as physical illnesses or allergies, survival and happiness may be closer at hand. Just like there are kinds of weather and substances that trigger allergies, or food that heightens cardiovascular diseases, there are also music and sky colors that make you crawl on the bed and hurt yourself a little bit. And just like there are foods that could prevent cancer, there are also dogs and sounds of birds and the wind that relax your soul.

Kobi relaxes on the boardwalk

Shila welcomes me back, all the time.

And says goodbye when I leave

What essentially makes you stronger is the knowledge of your weaknesses and limitations. Always remember the components of yourhealing process.

Hot air balloon festival in clark subic pampanga (Photo by: Khairon, taken with her samsung phone)

I’ll recall what a great singles’ weekend I just had, which they said was not possible should they be in relationships. I would never know because there hasn’t been someone who has attempted to control my life, since junior high. According to Khai, it was a nice time to rekindle with friends.

Photo taken by one of the girls

Next weekend, I’ll have another of what-we-call perks of singleship. My girl friends might bring their own dates, so I’ll say that dancing and hooking up with strangers is a lot more fun.

I’ve always believed that my acting as a bitch helps me filter out people who have no capacity to look beyond. Wearing skimpy clothes and acting like a slut who can be screwed anytime reveals more of others’ motivations, not to mention weaknesses that they do nothing about.

There are just a few points I’d like to highlight in this post (which I don’t normally do for the fear of confusing and boring you).

1. On Motivations. It’s a normal thing to find people looking at you, one yes to appreciate (which is totally fine); and second to ogle. Can someone who cannot even control his eye movement be trusted with his insatiable predatory thing? Again, it’s normal, expected, given. Yet I never knew that an in-your-face hurts twice as much.

2. On looking beyond. Last night I was having one of my deepest conversations with Prinzel, and experienced how foundational differences could really crack our heads while trying to understand what the other person says. In a long-running relationship, we don’t necessarily have to reach a compromise right then and there; we can continue to know and mold each other as we go on. Isn’t that what they call friendship?

3. On Relation-ality. So there are people who don’t look beyond and only see your boobs. For me, the biggest frustration is not having known someone given an enormous opportunity. All of a sudden, I am haunted again by the feeling that “I do not exist.” Despite my efforts at trying to engage and reveal myself (“because I know that I am a person of value and that I have something valuable to offer the world”), I still feel disconnected.

4. Nonetheless. I would continue to do what I do. In the same way that I’m thankful to Girl C for her call, I thank Prinzel for reassuring that I am not wasting my life (my time and all other investments in trying to help people grow, not because they’re ‘un-grown’, but because people ought to be happy). Apparently, she’s disturbed now and equally feeling disconnected; but I’m sure she has expanded.

5. On a Gentleman. Prinzel was still struggling with strong attraction (largely sexual) for a guy who “functionally” (as opposed to “technically”) has a girlfriend. A guy who gives in to flirtations. No matter how us girls blatantly say, “If you’re not serious just stay away from me. Because if you don’t, I’m gonna be drawn to you. If you don’t know me, don’t act as if you care. I’m freakin’ attracted to you, please refrain from seducing me,” they don’t seem to get the point. And that’s what we will call “taking advantage,” where accepting the implicit offer is more than convenient, practical and pleasurable. But there are still gentlemen out there who say NO. Basic respect, thank you. To the rest, thanks, but no thanks.

In the coming of 2012, I vowed not to underprice myself. I’ve always been forward, straightforward, aggressive, resolute in getting what I want. To the point of leaving no self-preservation (well, not really).

I’ve always been the one who reaches out, who makes herself very transparent (because I don’t believe that humans have much guessing to do), I’m confrontational and I say things that people don’t expect to hear (at least that’s what Haze said). If I say it, I mean it (to the best of my consciousness). If I don’t, don’t assume.

But this year, I want to see investment. I want to feel that I’m worth risking for. I want to be offered crazy unconditional love.

On the other end, Haze has vowed not to overprice this year!“The first time I’m willing to love someone without guarantees of being loved back.” To let down her guard and to take a risk.

How funny can life get? I learned from Haze, she learned from me. The differences that once caused tension between us, in the end, have helped each find her balance. What’s the more noble way to live? Who can tell.

Ruth’s Christmas and birthday greeting was tailed by “what happened to your hair?!” I said, “new year, new life.” “Only your hair ever changes; what else has changed about you?” She’s talking about 6 years. How do I answer that through SMS?

new year, new life, new you? (photo by: marj marzan)

You don’t have to wait for turnarounds to turn life around. And turnarounds aren’t upturns (whatever that means). Yet, the calendar is a potent reminder to keep changing. And how else do we consecrate ourselves to the tides of the universe…

i gotta change

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing (GB Shaw).”

A life spent exploring, not afraid of mistakes, of falling. I wanted that short hair but I was scared. Sis said, “Don’t care about what people would say. What’s important is you’d be happy you got that hair, whatever the result.” Cliche but it worked. Little things indeed build character.

“A man of great common sense and good taste – meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage (GB Shaw).”

What is your art? It amuses me to hear people say they don’t have any talent or that they’re not good in anything.

“Care of the Soul requires craft.

To live with a high degree of artfulness means to attend to the small things that keep the soul engaged in whatever we are doing And it is the very heart of soul-making.”

Art, as language of the soul, nurtures the soul.
Thus it should be in our every day.

“The fine arts are elevated and set apart from life, becoming too precious and therefore irrelevant. Having banished art to the museum, we fail to give it a place in ordinary life.”

My art is in people. I like seeing them grow and I’m a believer of change and progress. Seeing through and being seen, that’s when I am most connected to the world, in my very sense of destiny. People when they bloom, for me is the most beautiful that art has ever known.

Art that is not contained in movement, in rhythm, in color, texture and shape, in emotions and still moments — what is your art?

This is what Hey Artist is all about. Focus on your craft, enrich your talent, nurture your soul, and work out your own salvation.

Since high school, I was never a fan of courtship. Just a quick background, in my language, courtship is panli-ligaw (making ligaw). Ligaw in another context means being lost, mislead, or in some graver context, it is used as being astray from the path of good life.

Best foot forward.Disclaimer: I think I have to ask forgiveness first to the person involved in this post. This is not really about you, or what happened. I hope you can see through it all. Thank you, for everything! (and the title is of course, for readership purposes haha)

I don’t have to go through the rules of dating. Actually here’s a blog that is dedicated to that. And maybe you’d like to watch the movie He’s Just Not That Into You.

Anyway, I decided to give dating a chance. You know, going out with someone “just to see,” and not really because you want to see that person.

The so-called rule: If you hold a girl’s hand and she doesn’t take it back, she’s yours. If she does, then she’s not.

I just like messing up with rules. I find great satisfaction when I break rules and prove someone that these only exist in his head. For me this is a moment of grace to anyone.

So how about taking my hand back, and not taking it back, alternatively? It helps me see through people — Who’s subjecting me to his rules and who’s open and vulnerable enough to just see through me.It’s such a hassle when someone escapes our templates; but if we really like/want that person, we will exercise patience so that she can unfold and be seen in her own light. Not through the light of our projections, conventions, stereotypes, templates, expectations, desires, assumptions, preference, convenience…